Pause Workflows While Awaiting Approval with Chat SDK

The new chat/workflow path and requestApproval call in Chat SDK allow for the simple implementation of Workflow SDK workflows that require human approval. Approval requests are sent as cards containing Approve and Deny buttons, and the workflow is paused until a decision is made.

Wait times can be set from seconds to days, and the state persists even after deployments or restarts. There is no need to build separate approval tables, onAction handlers, or polling loops, and Thread instances are automatically serialized across workflow boundaries.

Key features include:

• Approver Restriction: Specify approvers to limit which users can approve; clicks by unauthorized users leave only an informational message while the workflow continues to wait.
• Verified Decisions: Platform signatures are verified for every click, and the user.id in the result contains information about the actual decision-maker.
• Audit Trail: When a decision is made or a timeout occurs, the card is edited with the result text to prevent stale clicks.

In the example, the workflow waits for deployment approval for 24 hours and then deploys the specified version only if the approved value is true.